The question I get over and over these days: "Is the Radeon HD 5870 worth the money? Is is the Radeon HD 5770 fast enough?" I've answered the question to some extent in previous articles but I'm going to give it another shot.

INSIGHTS
If Motion and Color are representative of pro apps, then it is likely that the Radeon HD 5870 is not going to give you a big advantage over the Radeon HD 5770. But the SmallLux OpenCL test shows the potential of the 5870 for pro apps that utilize OpenCL. And for most 3D apps and games, the 5870 presents a clear advantage over the 5770.

My advice to buyers of 2010 Mac Pros? Pay the extra $200 for the 5870. For all those planning to order the kits, it depends on what you run.

As you can also see from the graphs, certain models of Mac Pro make better use of the both the 5870 and 5770. There appears to be a correlation between CPU clock speed and relative performance. That is born out by the fact that the 3.33GHz 6-core Mac Pro leads the pack in 6 out of 7 tests. And since most GPU intensive apps use one or two cores, having an 8-core or 12-core Mac Pro will seldom provide an advantage for graphic intensive apps.

COMING NEXT
Just because an app deals with graphics does not mean that it utilizes the graphics card for all functions. When Aperture exports JPEG, when HandBrake converts video formats, andwhen Photoshop rotates an image or applies Smart Sharpen, those are all CPU intensive functions. On the other hand, when Color does the final rendering, I observed that the 2006 Mac Pro with the Radeon HD 5870 installed completed the job 30% faster than when the GeForce 8800 GT was installed.

What's also frustrating is the fact that those apps don't take full advantage of all available cores. Our next article will report on this.

MULTI-DISPLAY SUPPORTWe have had good success using two and three displays with the Radeon HD 5870 and 5770. On September 7th, Appleposted Tech Note HT4279 that seeks to guide you though the gotchas.

WHERE TO BUY NEWEST MAC GPUs
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